Quechuan languages

Quechuan languages, the languages of the former Inca Empire in South America and the principal native languages of the central Andes today. According to archaeological and historical evidence, the original languages were probably spoken in a small area in the southern Peruvian highlands until about 1450; after that their geographical range was rapidly enlarged by the Inca conquests. When the Spanish conquered the empire in 1532, Quechuan languages were spoken in western South America from what is now southern Colombia to central Chile and from the Pacific coast to the borders of the Amazon Basin.

Although the languages are still spoken by a large population of Indians, many of whom are monolingual, they are slowly losing ground to the Spanish language, which is the language of government and education. Some scholars place the Quechuan languages and the Aymaran languages together in a Quechumaran grouping.

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group of languages that once covered and today still partially cover all of South America, the Antilles, and Central America to the south of a line from the Gulf of Honduras to the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Estimates of the number of speakers in that area in pre-Columbian times vary from...

South American Indians who, at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1532, ruled an empire that extended along the Pacific coast and Andean highlands from the northern border of modern Ecuador to the Maule River in central Chile. A brief treatment of the Inca follows; for full treatment, see...

Education for the nobility consisted of a four-year program that was clearly defined in terms of the curricula and rituals. In the first year the pupils learned Quechua, the language of the nobility. The second year was devoted to the study of religion and the third year to learning about the quipu (khipu), a complex system of knotted coloured strings or...